by Steffan Browning
New Zealand must urgently follow the Australian Government’s decision to introduce law banning super trawlers operating in their fishery.
The 142m super trawler Abel Tasman, licensed to take 18,000 tonnes of mackerel and bait fish using 600-meter nets, is capable of wiping out entire localised fish populations, which puts fish stock genetic diversity at risk as well as the livelihoods of smaller fishing enterprises. The by-catch would also be significant.
The ship, previously named Margiris, is in Australia as a joint venture between a Dutch fishing company and Seafish Tasmania, which has a significant shareholding by Donna and Peter Simunovich – a theoretically retired, but significant New Zealand fishing family.
It is of concern that their ship, now disturbingly renamed Abel Tasman, may be brought to exploit fisheries in New Zealand waters now that it is being run out of Australian waters.
While New Zealand’s Quota Management system is often touted as the best in the world, it is not robust enough to protect fisheries from the excessive single catches that a monstrosity such as the Abel Tasman is capable of.
Provisions must be enacted in New Zealand to make sure that the Simunovich’s or New Zealand fisheries companies do not bring the Abel Tasman to New Zealand. Super trawlers have no place in any fishery in the world.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Steffan Browning on Wed, September 12th, 2012
Tags: Abel tasman, fisheries, margiris, QMS, Steffan Browning, super, supertrawlers, trawler
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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The bottom line is that if nothing is done then large areas of ocean will be dessert and hence NO FISH !!!
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Surely debate should be about the quotas being at a sustainable level and harvesting methods that have minimal environmental impact neither of which have anything to do with the size of the vessel. Are you suggesting 10 smaller boats harvesting the quota would have less impact on the environment ?
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Paul – I think that that is exactly the claim. A big ship with a big net can’t be very selective, so there will be a lot of collateral damage. Also if it takes practically all the fish from a fishery, it will take much longer for that fishery to recover than if a smaller boat comes along and takes half, even if it returns later and takes another half.
Efficiency is not sustainability.
Trevor.
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